Drought Lifts Western US - Literally

posted by Matt Cantor, Newser Staff
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2 years ago

(NEWSER) – If you're in the western US, the ground you're standing on may be a little higher than it was a few years ago. The drought that's been plaguing the West has resulted in an "uplift effect," scientists find. The "growing, broad-scale loss of water" has caused "the entire western US to rise up like an uncoiled spring," according to a new study. Albuquerque is 0.15 inches higher than a decade earlier, while California's mountains have climbed more than half an inch, the Albuquerque Journal reports. “It probably doesn’t change life for people in Albuquerque or the Southwest, but it’s significant that so much water is being moved around that it can cause the land to move up or down,” says a University of New Mexico geophysicist.